


Considering Camelot

by MerryHeart



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Musical References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/MerryHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Will invites Mackenzie to the theatre and thinks a great deal about King Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Considering Camelot

            By now, Will’s about ninety-nine-and-forty-four-one-hundreths percent sure that Mackenzie’s heart is his for the asking, but he is one hundred percent certain that she’s done putting up with all the various forms of torture he’s put her through, so when he decides to invite her to be his plus-one to the opening night of the new revival of _Camelot_ , he has no idea what her answer will be.

            He asks her one Friday evening after the broadcast, as they’re walking back to his office. She’s already in a good mood because tonight’s show was the best one of the week, but (and he knows he’s playing a bit dirty here) she’s always enjoyed watching him shed his jacket and undo his tie before he goes to change, and he wants as many variables on his side as possible.

            She’s been going on for the last few minutes about something she wants to cover next week, but he hasn’t really been paying attention.

            “—and I think we should keep an eye on it over the weekend—”

            “Mackenzie,” he interrupts.

            “You haven’t been listening.”

            “Well, yeah, that’s true, but I have a good reason.”

            “It’s Friday and you just don’t care may qualify as a reason, but it’s not a good one.”

            “It’s good enough for me, which is all that really matters, but that’s not—I have tickets to _Camelot_.”

            “I didn’t realize one could buy a ticket to a fictional ancient city,” she cuts in.

            “Hey, the debate rages on about its existence, and they might have ruled out Cadbury, but they’re still looking. And that’s not what I’m talking about. The Roundabout Theatre Company’s staging a revival of the musical, it’s a limited engagement thing, I have tickets for opening night next week, would you like to go with me?” It’s far less smooth than he intended, but now it’s out there and he can only wait on her.

            She squints slightly and he knows she’s reading his face, trying to determine if this is an extra special form of punishment disguised as a generosity. A show about a woman whose infidelity causes the destruction of a man and everything he worked to create is not the ideal show for two people in their situation to attend, but dammit, it’s one of his favorites and he just wants to take her with him.

            She raises an eyebrow and he braces himself for the ‘no’.

            “This is the one with the kid at the end that you’re always going on about?”

            “The kid who is actually Sorority Girl, yes.”

            She looks at him a little longer before saying, “Yes, I would very much like to go, if only for its potential to provide a window into whatever the hell goes on in your mind.”

            There’s a tap on the door and Sloan pokes her head it. “Hi, yes, Kenzie, it’s been a good week for the stock market, so if you’re going to be forever I’m going to go ahead to Hang Chew’s for a preliminary libation.”

            “Nope, I’m coming,” Mackenzie says with a last glace at Will. “Let me grab my things.”

 

 

            Will thought quite a lot about Camelot in his post-breakup fury. In his mind he _was_ Arthur, visionary, full of passion for an idea and a woman only to have it all destroyed by that woman, that smart, ambitious, beautiful maddening _heartbreaking_ woman. He debated which was worse, Guinevere cheating on Arthur with his best friend, or Mackenzie cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend. He had this debate with himself after several glasses of bourbon and so decided that it was worse for him, that everything was worse for him, and that men who were trying to build better worlds just needed to keep away from the women, because they only tear your heart out and your kingdom apart.

            Will wondered if Arthur woke up in the middle of the night and sought Guinevere’s hand with his, if he brushed his hand on her hip in passing, kissed the top of her head, let her use him as a pillow, carried her to bed, drew her irresistibly close and whispered “I love you”s into her skin…

 

 

            “You didn’t tell me there would be cameras,” Mackenzie says through her smile as she walks the red carpet on Will’s arm.

            “You look lovely, and they’ll only be seen by a few people who bother to go through the photo galleries on Playbill.com.”

            “So people like you.”

            “Why did I decide to bring you again?”

            “I’ve been wondering the same thing all week.”

            They’re inside the door now and he uses that as an excuse not to answer.

 

 

            Will spends nearly as much time watching Mackenzie watch the show as he spends watching it himself. Despite that, he absorbs all the details of sets and costumes and lighting, forms opinions of voices and acting and blocking, comes to the conclusion that it’s a quality production, thinks he could have had a career as a theatre critic if he hadn’t gone on to do something useful with his life instead.

            He figures Mackenzie’s careful scrutiny before accepting his invitation has mostly exonerated him from suspicion of going to all these lengths just to shame her, but there’s a handful of lines in the final scene that honestly have him worried. He glances at Mackenzie so often during Act II that he’s sure she’ll notice, but when the moment in question arrives, he fixes his gaze straight ahead as Guinevere weeps into Arthur’s hand before looking up at him.

            _“It’s often in the past, Arthur, I would look in your eyes, and I would find there forgiveness. Perhaps, one day in the future it shall be there again, but now I won’t be with you, I won’t see it…”_

            Guinevere is sent away, banished to a nunnery, which, it only now crosses Will’s mind, is far more comfortable than Afghanistan, or at least far safer.

            The kid has come onstage now, and this might just be Will’s favorite part, but he allows himself one more glance at Mackenzie.

            She looks exactly the same as she has the other hundred times he glanced at her since intermission, except she’s biting the corner of her lower lip. Without giving himself time to think, Will lets his hand find hers and squeeze it gently.

 

 

            After the finale (of course he’s not crying…there’s just Arthurian legend in his eye) and curtain call, he leads her backstage to say hello to actors. He’s met most of them at least once because he does this sort of thing a lot; she smiles and lets him carry on conversations and mostly use her as arm candy. She does joke to the director how Will references the show all the time and finally she’ll understand him, or at least as much as anyone can understand Will McAvoy.

 

 

            When they exchange the heat of the theatre for the cool of the evening, she asks if they can stroll for a bit, just a chance to breathe and look at the lights of the theatre district. He looks at her and the way her cheeks are flushed the way everyone’s are after a show, but the afterglow looks particularly enchanting on her, he wants to brush a hand against those cheeks, he says “Of course we can walk” instead.

            She’s more like Arthur than he ever was. He sees that now. _She_ is the visionary, the leader, determined to use the news’ might for right, inviting anyone who will listen to the Round Table of Giving A Damn. She’s another Greater Fool. King Arthur was one of the first.

            (Will wonders if this makes Charlie Merlin, and also what this makes him. Probably somebody’s horse.)

            The thing about Camelot, whether one is referring to Arthur or Kennedy, is that the idyll fades and the castle falls. News Night may be led by Arthur reincarnate as an American woman with a British accent (so _that’s_ the reason for it), but they are not rebuilding Camelot. They’re building something else, and he doesn’t know its name yet, but he has come, rather without realizing it, to trust the builder. (Only in a metaphorical sense of building, though. The woman subtracts with her fingers.)

            He wonders if she looked in his eyes right now if she would see forgiveness.

            “Mackenzie,” he says, and his voice is soft.

            She looks up at him. “Hm?”

            “Would you like to come back to my place for a glass of wine? I think I have cheesecake in the fridge?”

            She blinks. Smiles. “I like cheesecake.”

            “I know.”

            He honestly doesn’t know if the night will end with “I love you”s whispered against her skin, but he has the sudden overwhelming desire to see her barefoot in his apartment once more, wine glass dangling from her fingers, looking like home.

            Will loves revivals of shows, particularly musicals, because an old show with a new director in a new age will have a freshness to it, something more or different to offer than it did the first time around.

            He thinks he may finally be ready for the revival of Will and Mackenzie.

 

            


End file.
